Page 2 of Pretty Wild

She pulls out her phone and taps on the screen. The light fills the cab, but I keep my eyes focused on the road. “I need service so I can pull up the directions again,” she says, tapping away with a little more insistence.

“Do you know the address? I was born and raised here. I know this place like the back of my hand.”

She taps again before answering, “Thirteen sixty Lakeview Road.”

I stifle the curse, but not the sigh.

“Do you know it?” she asks, hopeful.

“Yeah, I know it,” I mutter, heading in the direction of Lakeview Road and the address she gave.

Is this really happening? It’s just my luck the high-maintenance woman I met on the side of the road is renting my cabin for the next month. I mentally pull up the email I received from the management company, informing me of the last-minute rental agreement. I didn’t look at the name, because it didn’t matter. All I needed to know is someone was going to be my neighbor for the next month.

“So…what’s your name?” she asks, breaking through the silence filling the truck cab.

“Marcus.”

When the silence surrounds us once more, she says, “Mine’s Ryan.”

“Ryan?” I ask, my eyebrows drawing upward as I take a quick glance her way.

“Yes, Ryan,” she replies in a clipped tone.

“Sorry,” I insist, lifting both hands in surrender for a flash. “Didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just a…unique name for a girl.”

“Exactly,” she states proudly.

I turn off Lowe Road onto Lakeview. We bounce along the dirt path, the potholes a permanent part of the drive. There are not many houses down this road, and since it’s technically just outside the city limits, the road commissioner hasn’t made it much of a priority to do upgrades to the roadway, especially since I usually plow it myself when I do my driveway and the cabin next door.

She glances around at our surroundings, taking in the darkened road and the abundance of trees. “Are you sure this is where we’re supposed to be going?” she asks, squinting into the darkness. “You’re not taking me somewhere to murder me, right? I mean, I’m pretty sure this is how they start most cheesy teen horror movies,” she adds with an uncomfortable chuckle.

I can’t help but grin. “No, Princess, I’m not driving you to my lair to murder you. Your cabin is actually right up the way.”

“It is?” she asks, looking back out the window.

“Yep. There’re only two other places on this road. It’s pretty secluded and not one of the main tourist areas for the lake. This is all private land around here.” We pass one of the only other driveways on the road. “That’s the driveway for the owner of your cabin, and if you travel about another half mile up this road, you’ll find the other. Just past their house is the main road that’ll take you to the Bluff Preserves National Park’s camping areas.”

“Huh,” she says before I turn off the roadway and drive up the private lane. She pulls out her phone and tries typing again. “I still don’t have service.”

“The cabin has Wi-Fi, but the service is spotty at best. There’s an old rotary phone attached to the phone line in the kitchen.” I stop in front of the cabin and turn to look at Ryan.

“A what?” she asks, her eyes wide.

I almost laugh as I throw my truck into park. “A rotary phone and a wired phone line. It was all the rage in the eighties and nineties.”

She makes a choking noise. “I wasn’t even born yet.”

Now it’s my turn for my eyes to widen. “You weren’t?”

“Well, I was in the nineties, but not until the very end. I’m twenty-six.”

I close my eyes and groan. She’s younger than I expected, a whole eleven years behind my thirty-seven. Not that it matters or anything. It’s not like we’re dating.

“Anyway, let’s get your luggage unloaded, and then I’ll run to the shop and retrieve my tow truck to get your SUV.”

She meets me around at the back of my truck. “It’s a rental,” she says, watching as I remove all three pieces from my truck bed.

“All right. I’ll take it back to my shop and get it fixed first thing in the morning.”

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